This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1895 Excerpt: ... THE SCHOOL REVIEW A JOURNAL OF SECONDARY EDUCATION SHOULD THERE BE A COURSE OF SIX YEARS IN LATIN IN OUR SECONDARY SCHOOLS? It may seem a deplorable fact that in the Secondary Schools of our country, public and private taken together, there are eight pupils in Latin to one in Greek. t That only fifteen to twenty thousand pupils should be studying Greek is of course a bad thing. It looks bad, when we think how many more, both in absolute numbers, as well as proportionally to the population, are studying Greek in England, or France, or Germany. It is bad in itself, as evincing how few there are who are devoting themselves to the study of all studies which fosters acute and noble thinking, the finest taste, the ideal literary temper, and an unquenchable love of knowledge and truth. Yet, for all this, though pupils in Greek are comparatively few and always have been few, and perhaps always will be few, they are, nevertheless, asarule, pupils of exceptional promise, when compared with the mass. They are the best part of the intellectual elite in our secondary schools. It makes little difference how this is accounted for, whether by the supposition that Greek produces fine effects on boys who are capable of these effects, or that boys of a certain kind take to Greek, or even by the idea that tradition is responsible for the prejudice in favor of Greek, and that other studies may produce as good results. The undeniable thing is that there is a fine effect secured, wherever Greek is well taught, and to say other studies will do equally well does not destroy this great fact, for I need hardly argue in this presence that there is an affinity, amounting to the recognition of kinship, between a certain class of the finest minds and Greek. Still, there ought to be many ...